Menlo-Atherton didn’t have to look far to find its man. Adhir Ravipati agreed to become the football coach at M-A on Wednesday night a little over a month after it was announced that Sione Ta’ufo’ou decided to step away after five seasons.

Ravipati, 27, served as offensive coordinator with the Bears for the majority of the past three seasons and was one of five candidates to participate in the interview process.

“The feeling of the committee was that at this time Adhir was the perfect candidate to build on what Sione has done and take us to the next level,” M-A co-Athletic Director Steven Kryger told The Daily News on Thursday.

A 2005 graduate of Harker in San Jose, Ravipati didn’t immediately join the pool of candidates. Support from the community — including parents and players from past and present, alumni and staff members — helped convince him to apply, he said.

“I knew it was the right thing I wanted to do,” Ravipati said. “We’ve had a lot initiative we’ve been working, particularly on the academic program and kind of trying to make M-A football a little bit stronger and a more positive presence in the community. And I wanted to make sure that I followed things through. The opportunity presented itself, so I decided to go for it. It was a very competitive pool, there were some really, really great candidates and I’m humbled to have been chosen.”

In high school, Ravipati lettered in five sports — football, basketball, baseball, volleyball and track — and was selected to play in the 2005 Charlie Wedemeyer All-Star football game.

“Football and basketball are definitely kind of my passions,” said Ravipati, who is also a current assistant coach with the M-A varsity boys basketball program. “I went on to play football at college and that’s my first love. As a coach, it’s a consummate team sport. No matter how good individual talent you have, it still takes all 11 guys in football. Where as if you have one star in basketball, you can kind of take a game over.”

Ravipati attended the University of San Diego for two years, where he played for current Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh and Stanford coach David Shaw, the latter his wide receivers coach at the time.

“It’s one of those things where you end up being at the right place at the right time,” said Ravipati, who after his redshirt season at USD transferred to Northeastern University to pursue a degree in biochemistry and led the Huskies in yards per catch as a senior. “It was a really, really incredible experience and something I definitely think has impacted me quite a bit in how I am as a coach.”

That’s a big reason why Ravipati implemented the West Coast system at M-A in 2013. He also favors a power run game.

“A lot of what you see Stanford doing is what we like to do,” Ravipati said. “So we use multiple tight ends down on the field, we’ll be very formationally diverse, we’re going to scheme to take advantage of other teams’ weaknesses.”

What about on defense?

“We want to play really fast,” Ravipati said. “We want to be really physical. We want our kids to have a lot of fun flying around and enjoy playing the game of football. And we want to keep things simple and have a defense that can really sort of almost mutate to what an offense is doing.”

But that’s not the priority at the moment. Instead, Ravipati wants to focus on what he called “our DNA as a program” by developing his boys in three facets.

“The last thing is honestly the football portion,” Ravipati said. “In terms of the academic and the personal development, we really want to focus our kids on being really competitive. We want to bring competition and make things fun and let kids kind of enjoy and embrace trying to be the best they can be. And I think if we can do that really successfully and instill the kind of discipline, accountability, commitment, mental toughness — the kind of the things that you need to be a successful person — then those things will translate over to the field. And that’s where we as coaches schematically can put those things in place for them to succeed.”

Ravipati wasn’t on the M-A staff for the first five games of the 2014 season, with the Bears finishing 3-8. Busy pursuing his own startup business, Ravipati returned to the sidelines for the 21-14 home victory over Sequoia-Redwood City in which sophomore running back Jordan Mims made his varsity debut with 26 carries for 181 yards.

“We’re going to bring back close to 18 kids who started a game last year at the varsity level,” Ravipati said. “So there’s a lot of excitement around here. The kids are very motivated, hungry to change kind of the bad taste in their mouths from last year and become better, and that includes off the field as well.

“But like I said, we’re not going to focus on wins and losses. We’re going to focus on competing every day to get better in those three facets: Am I a better person? Am I a better student? And, lastly, am I better football player? If we do those things every day, I think we’ll be in a good position come the season.”

Vytas Mazeika is a sports reporter at The Daily News based out of Menlo Park. He covers athletics at every level, from high school to Stanford to the pros. He also designs the sports pages and copy edits for The Daily News print edition. Mazeika graduated from Carlmont High in 1994 and earned an English bachelor's degree from UCLA.

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